


Out of Frame

by RighteousNerd



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Philinda in the framework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9896141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RighteousNerd/pseuds/RighteousNerd
Summary: He was Phil Coulson; 10th grade history teacher, married, no kids. That's who he wanted to be.





	

In the end, there was no real argument that actually persuaded him. There was no rally against the forces of evil. No sudden resurgence of lost memories. He had never really believed that his life had been taken and twisted anyway.

All he knew was that he was as he had always been. Phil Coulson; 10th grade history teacher, married, no kids. That's all he was. Even when she told him he was more.

She wasn't a girl, though for some reason he had trouble seeing her as anything else. A habit of being a teacher, he guessed. It was 4:37 PM on a Tuesday and Melinda was due back that night so he had rushed through his grading in anticipation. She said her name was Daisy when he found her on his doorstep and, not suspecting a threat, he had agreed to speak with her. 

Daisy had sat on his couch, looking pensive over a hastily prepared cup of tea, until finally she said, “Phil Coulson, I've been looking for you. I need your help saving the world.”

He didn't believe her at all. How could he? She told him this wasn't his life. If it wasn't his, who's was it? He had a lifetime of memories. He'd grown up happy, with parents that had loved him. Always safe. Always loved. He became a teacher like his father. He'd fallen in love. He remembered that most of all. 

“I'm sorry. That's not my life.” He told her, trying to ignore the look of hurt that flashed across her face. Couldn't have been helped, really. The man she described was a hero. A man who had made sacrifices for the greater good. That man couldn't have had what Phil had. She hadn't said as much, but he had seen Daisy take in the framed pictures on his mantle. 

“You look happy,” She had said. Something inexplicably sad and heavy settling over her as she took in the smiling faces. “Please try to remember.”

She promised that she would be back, but what did it matter? He didn't believe her. He was Phil Coulson; 10th grade history teacher, married, no kids. That's who he wanted to be. 

*

That night, his wife found him in the dark of their living room, and just the sight of her filled him with reckless need as it always did. Melinda reached for him and the touch of her skin was a promise against his. When she led him to their bed he gladly followed.

“I didn't mean to keep you waiting,” She told him and he thought he might have been waiting all of his life. 

She pulled him close and it felt nowhere near close enough. Melinda kissed him sweetly though she had never tasted like anything other than desperation. There had always been echoes of loss in the way her lips had brushed his; Always something out of reach, out of sight, something between them that he couldn't name or place. Something for him alone. Phil knew that he loved her; her place at his side was unquestionable, her place in his bed a dream. Years together and he could never touch her enough; he could spend an eternity trying to memorize her with his fingertips but it would always feel as if she had spent a lifetime falling through them. 

Their clothes gone, the boundaries removed, she had lay before him as both a challenge and a surrender. His fingers tried to coax answers from her skin but when he held her close all he felt was her mysteries. Melinda came undone under his hands and lips but still she felt so far from him that it was all he could do to get closer still. Phil lost himself there, her holding him to her and the warmth of them everywhere. When he called out Melinda, his mind whispered only for May.

Afterward, he said “I never want to lose you.”

“You could never lose me,” Melinda answered. He didn't tell her that he thought he already had.

*

He was waiting on his doorstep when Daisy found him again. He didn't look at her when she sat next to him, just continued to study the pavement. It seemed real enough. 

Except.

Except he was Phil Coulson and he didn't care if he was a 10th grade history teacher or if he was actually married or not. He missed Melinda. Had been missing her, even when she was right there next to him. He could feel where she was supposed to be; a phantom limb or someone who had not quite made it into the picture but was still waiting somewhere just out of frame. Everything in him told him that he hadn't found her. That he still needed to find her.

“This other... version of me, does he love her too?”

“Yes,” Daisy said, and her voice was pity and longing and something else that he didn't really want to question all tangled up together. “For as long as I've known him.”

“I'll help you,” Phil said, wondering if the other version of him was at all adverse to tears. “Just... help me find Melinda.”

In the end, there was no real argument that actually persuaded him. There was no rally against the forces of evil. No sudden resurgence of lost memories. He didn't know if he was this Phil Coulson or some other. But he knew her and that was enough.


End file.
